Staying ahead in the ever-evolving eCommerce landscape often hinges on streamlining processes while maintaining a top-notch customer experience. This is where the concept of “custom automated” solutions comes into play. But what does “custom automated” truly mean for your BigCommerce store, and how can it help your business thrive? Let’s break down its role, benefits, and practical applications to see how it fits into your growth strategy.
I. What Does “Custom Automated” Mean?
Custom automation is the process of designing and building custom machinery or systems to automate specific tasks.This might be a straightforward conveyor belt or a complex system that combines many different procedures.
Custom automation has several advantages.
- It allows businesses to make task automation that generic industrial systems may struggle with or fail to address.
- Customization gives you greater control over your processes, aligning the system with your exact needs.
- Over time, custom automation can be more cost-effective than relying on multiple off-the-shelf solutions that require extensive integration.
II. The Role of Custom Automation in eCommerce Growth
Custom automation is a powerful tool for scaling your BigCommerce store, addressing operational hurdles, and enhancing the customer experience.
1. Supporting Scalability Without Increasing Overhead
As your business expands, managing inventory, orders, and customer interactions becomes more challenging. Custom automation enables you to grow without a proportional rise in labor or resources.
- Automated Order Fulfillment: By automating order processing, businesses can ensure quick and accurate fulfillment, even during peak shopping seasons, reducing delays and manual errors.
- Time Savings: Freeing your team from repetitive tasks lets them focus on strategic initiatives that drive growth.
2. Enhancing Customer Experience and Retention
Customer experience is a key differentiator in eCommerce. Custom automated solutions enable businesses to deliver a seamless, personalized journey:
- Personalized Recommendations: Based on customer browsing and purchase history, automated tools can suggest products tailored to individual preferences.
- Simplified Returns and Exchanges: Custom workflows make processes like returns and exchanges hassle-free, boosting customer satisfaction.
3. Addressing Unique Challenges
Every eCommerce business has specific hurdles, and custom automation is designed to tackle these effectively:
- Managing Complex Product Categories: Custom workflows can streamline the listing and categorization of diverse products, ensuring easy navigation for customers.
- International Shipping: Automating compliance with international shipping rules or multi-currency pricing ensures smooth global transactions.
III. How to Build Custom Automated Workflows for Your BigCommerce Store
Assess Your Needs
Understanding your business’s unique needs is the cornerstone of successful automation. Begin by assessing your existing workflows, identifying inefficiencies, and determining where automation can deliver the greatest impact. Implementing custom automated solutions tailored to your specific requirements can streamline operations, eliminate bottlenecks, and enhance productivity. These custom automated systems allow businesses to address unique challenges, ensuring that automation efforts align perfectly with operational goals and deliver maximum value.
- Define Automation Goals: Clearly outline what you want to achieve with automation. Some common objectives include:
- Reducing manual workload: Automating repetitive tasks to free up your team for more strategic work.
- Improving accuracy: Reducing human error in order processing, inventory management, and data entry.
- Consult Stakeholders: Involve your team members, from customer service to operations, to get their input on what tasks would benefit most from automation. This collaborative approach ensures that no pain points are overlooked.
Choose the Right Tools
Once you’ve assessed your needs and defined goals, the next step is selecting the right tools to build your automated workflows. The tools you choose should align with both your business needs and technical capabilities.
- Third-Party Apps and Integrations: Depending on your business needs, you may require third-party automation tools to enhance your BigCommerce store’s capabilities. Some popular tools for eCommerce automation include:
- GritGlobal’s BigCommerce Automation Atom8: A powerful automation platform designed specifically for eCommerce. It can automate tasks like segmenting customers, sending personalized marketing campaigns, and triggering dynamic promotions.
- Custom API Solutions: If your business has unique automation needs, you may want to build a custom solution using BigCommerce’s API. This option provides the highest level of flexibility but requires developer expertise.
Set Up Workflows
In this step, you need to design and implement the workflows. This stage involves mapping the processes and configuring the tools to automate them.
- Map Out the Workflow: Begin by clearly outlining the sequence of tasks that you want to automate. For example:
- For an abandoned cart recovery workflow: Define the trigger (a customer abandons their cart), the action (automate email notification), and follow-up steps (send a second email after 24 hours if the cart remains abandoned).
- For an order processing workflow: Define the trigger (a customer places an order), the action (automatically send order confirmation to the customer, update inventory levels, notify the warehouse team), and follow-up actions (automatically generate a shipping label once the order is fulfilled).
- Define Triggers and Actions: Workflows are powered by triggers (events that start the workflow) and actions (tasks that follow). For instance, when a customer subscribes to your newsletter, that could trigger automated email campaigns (actions).
- Integrate Data Across Platforms: Many workflows rely on seamless data flow across multiple systems. For example, you might need to integrate customer data from your BigCommerce store with your email marketing platform, CRM system, or ERP software.
Test and Optimize
Last but not least, test in advance to see that your workflows function correctly, then continuous adjustments enhance their efficiency during the operations.
- Test the Workflow: Test your automated workflows in a controlled environment. For example, if you’re automating emails, send test emails to ensure the formatting, content, and timing are correct. If automating orders, run a few test transactions to ensure everything works smoothly, from the order confirmation to the shipping updates.
- Monitor Performance: Once workflows are live, monitor their performance closely. Look at key metrics such as:
- Conversion rates for abandoned cart recovery emails.
- Order processing time for automated fulfillment processes.
Conclusion
Building custom automated workflows for your BigCommerce store requires careful planning, the right tools, and ongoing optimization. This not only enhances productivity and reduces errors but also provides a better experience for your customers, ultimately leading to business growth and success.
Interested in exploring how GritGlobal’s automation app Atom8 can simplify complex tasks for your store? Reach out to us today to discover the possibilities.
